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Meeting the Participants

Steve, 64, Essex

Occupation: Former underwriter

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he lived in a left-leaning London borough and supported the Social Democratic Party

Interesting fact: His specialty in underwriting was hostage situations: “Everyone always says that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re planning evacuating people from the Korean peninsula because the North Koreans have activated the weapon systems”

Eva, 25, the capital

Occupation: Psychology graduate

Voting record: In her native land, New Zealand, she voted a combination of progressive parties

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on ocean liners; her most extended voyage was six months, which is a long time to be at sea

For starters

Eva: Steve appeared focused on enjoying the meal, to be receptive

He: She seemed like a very bright, well-spoken, nice person

Eva: I had a tomato and mozzarella dish, mushroom pasta, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

The big beef

Eva: He was definitely on the side of immigration being curtailed. He thinks that British people who already live here, including non-white white British, face limited access to the essential services, because increasing numbers are entering. However I just disagree that the numbers are that bad

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a homogeneous, WASP country with warm beer. But I believe that authorities have used immigration to occupy positions they struggle to staff without increasing salaries. Pay are suppressed, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – allocate additional funds on childcare, on education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was sixteen and abroad when it happened. He clarified it to me in a different perspective. He informed me about “posted workers” – candidates could come here and only be paid the wage of the country they came from

He: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the system; it was revised in 2018. Before that, posted workers coming in were undercutting local employees. Under the former PM, it was petroleum staff that were brought in; later it’s been service industry, agriculture. She understood that, because she’d worked on a passenger vessel and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

He: It would be ideal to have a different energy source, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I love the clean air, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of Norway?” Their energy revenues skyrocketed after Ukraine started, they allocated those funds to develop green infrastructure

Eva: So we’re using their oil. You can see that’s an unfavorable approach to proceed. He was in favour of maintaining domestic drilling for the small amount we’ll need in the future. I kind of agree with him. We’re still going to rely on air travel. We both think we should be advancing to greener solutions, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We touched on Islamophobia, though we didn’t call it that. He seemed concerned about radical ideologies entering – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were extremist, which I felt was not fair. I think it’s discriminatory to make judgments based on faith

Steve: I hail from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to that district, and she said it had been gentrified. Naturally, I would say that: full of yuppies. But when I go down that local market, I appear out of place. People stare at me because it’s become predominantly Islamic. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a alternative term – maybe enclave?

She: I believe that followers of Islam are really overrepresented in the media as engaging in misconduct. It seems a little bit racist, or prejudiced against foreigners

Takeaway

He: I think we separated amicably. We had a hug at the station

She: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening